US copper mostly higher

US copper futures closed at a monthly high on Friday, with drawdown in global copper stockpiles and strike action providing the impetus for the midweek price rally, analysts said.
Frank McGhee, head precious metals trader with Integrated Brokerage Services LLC in Chicago, noted this week's bullish momentum might push prices through the upper end of their recent ranges as next week.
"We have settled into pretty much a 20-cent trading range. The market is extremely well bid at the lower end and extremely well offered at the upper. It is in a bullish pattern and I wouldn't be surprised to see copper move in and above the $3.50 level over the next six to seven trading days," McGhee said. Copper for September delivery ended up 2.30 cents to $3.4505 a lb. on the New York Mercantile Exchange's Comex division, its highest settlement since June 4, after dealing in a session range between $3.42 to $3.4750.
Final estimated futures volumes slowed to 10,571 lots, compared with Thursday's official count of 17,086 lots. As of June 28, open interest in Comex copper futures increased 964 lots to 79,530 contracts. Potential supply disruptions stemming from a planned strike at Chile's Collahuasi copper mine aided in the market's recovery from two-week lows on Wednesday as investors bid prices higher amid speculation that output at the massive mine will not keep pace with robust global demand.
Collahuasi is one of the world's largest producers of copper, with output of some 440,000 tonnes per year of copper in cathodes and in concentrates. Elsewhere in Chile, the state miner Codelco said protests by subcontractors at an electrowinning plant at its Rodomiro Tomic copper mine had resulted in 1,240 tonnes worth of lost production.
Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, said the production losses and some $131,000 worth of material damages to the SX/EW plant in northern Chile would cost the miner some $9.3 million. Meanwhile, workers at Polish copper group KGHM have voted to authorise a companywide strike if management does not meet their wage demands, a union representative said on Friday.
Strata Plc said it has obtained an interim injunction and property protection order to safeguard employees, assets and operations for the duration of a strike at its Canadian copper refinery (CCR) in Montreal.
The recent spate of labour disputes has turned investor attention away from the turbulence in the US supreme mortgage debt market, which roiled both equity and commodity markets earlier in the week.
Government and US stocks bond prices rose on Friday after data showed inflation pressures moderating. An inflation reading favoured by the Federal Reserve, the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy, showed prices in May rose at their slowest pace since March 2004 on a year over year basis.
Separate reports on Midwest business activity and consumer sentiment were stronger than expected, a day after the Fed said in its policy meeting statement that the economy was likely to expand moderately in coming quarters. Declines in global copper stocks added to the bullish momentum on Friday as the numbers continued to show a consistent flow of material out of warehouses, compounding already tight conditions.
London Metal Exchange copper stocks fell 1,675 tonnes to 114,700 tonnes on Friday, while Comex stocks declined 224 short tons to 22,123 tons on Thursday. Shanghai Futures exchange copper inventories dropped 5,408 tonnes to 90,617 tonnes in the week through on Thursday. LME copper for delivery in three months climbed as high as $7,640 a tonne, its loftiest since June 18, before ending at $7,560, up $19 from Thursday's close.